[Ict4devwg] Digitization and public domain books

[Vern Weitzel]

Subject: 	[bytesforall_readers] Digitization and public domain books
Date: 	Tue, 12 May 2009 04:05:03 +0530
From: 	Subbiah Arunachalam <subbiah.arunachalam at gmail.com>
Reply-To: 	bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com
To: 	lawrence at altlawforum.org, the.solipsist at gmail.com,
aprabhala at gmail.com, peters at earlham.edu, bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com





Friends:


Here is a news story from Open Access News about the copyright status of
digitized public domain books. "The original books are in the public
domain and the digitizers do not acquire new copyrights in the digital
editions (at least under US law)," says Prof. Peter Suber. Will it not
apply to books digitized by Google? Or how do we convince Google that it
should adopt the same policies as Internet Archive?

Arun

==


*Cornell allows unrestricted use of its public-domain ebooks
<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/05/cornell-allows-unrestricted-use-of-its.html>*

Cornell University Library Removes All Restrictions on Use of Public
Domain Reproductions
<http://news.library.cornell.edu/com/news/PressReleases/Cornell-University-Library-Removes-All-Restrictions-on-Use-of-Public-Domain-Reproductions.cfm>, 

a press release from Cornell <http://www.cornell.edu/> (today).  Excerpt:

     In a dramatic change of practice, Cornell University Library has
     announced it will no longer require its users to seek permission to
     publish public domain items duplicated from its collections.
     Instead, users may now use reproductions of public domain works made
     for them by the Library or available via Web sites, without seeking
     any further permission.

     The Library, as the producer of digital reproductions made from its
     collections, has in the past licensed the use of those
     reproductions. Individuals and corporations that failed to secure
     permission to repurpose these reproductions violated their agreement
     with the Library. "The threat of legal action, however," noted Anne
     R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian, "does little to stop
     bad actors while at the same time limits the good uses that can be
     made of digital surrogates. We decided it was more important to
     encourage the use of the public domain materials in our holdings
     than to impose roadblocks."

     The immediate impetus for the new policy is Cornell’s donation of
     more than 70,000 digitized public domain books to the Internet
     Archive (details [here <http://www.archive.org/details/cornell>]).

     "Imposing legally binding restrictions on these digital files would
     have been very difficult and in a way contrary to our broad support
     of open access principles," said Oya Y. Rieger, Associate University
     Librarian for Information Technologies....

     Institutional restrictions on the use of public domain work,
     sometimes labeled "copyfraud," have been the subject of much
     scholarly criticism. The Cornell initiative goes further than many
     other recent attempts to open access to public domain material by
     removing restrictions on both commercial and non-commercial use.
     Users of the public domain works are still expected to determine on
     their own that works are in the public domain where they live. They
     also must respect non-copyright rights, such as the rights of
     privacy, publicity, and trademark. The Library will continue to
     charge service fees associated with the reproduction of analog
     material or the provision of versions of files different than what
     is freely available on the Web. All library Web sites will be
     updated to reflect this newpolicy
     <http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/guidelines.html> during 2009.

*Comment*.  This is an exemplary policy.  The original books are in the
public domain and the digitizers do not acquire new copyrights in the
digital editions (at least under US law).  Hence, these digital editions
are also in the public domain.  Privately-funded digitization projects,
like Cornell's, may still want to be reimbursed for the costs of
digitization.  But Cornell is right that restricting reuse of the
public-domain texts will limit valuable uses, violate the university's
background commitment to OA, and (as usually implemented) constitute
copyfraud.  Nor would it do much to stop determined reusers --who should
not be called /bad actors/when they are exercising their rights to use
and reuse works in the public domain.

Permanent link to this post
<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/05/cornell-allows-unrestricted-use-of-its.html> 
Posted
by Peter Suber at 5/11/2009 01:09:00 PM